Dreaming of Summer
by Eric A
Summary: Read after "Kindred Spirits", please! Quistis finds that separation makes the heart grow fonder, so to speak


Dreaming of Summer

Day 119:

Quistis Trepe walks across the campus of Balamb Garden, within the complex of buildings that surround the main Garden complex, outwardly addressing the occasional student or faculty member that speaks to her. Inwardly, though, she is lost in thought, lost in anticipation quite foreign to her. She did not expect this to happen to her, in her pragmatic, logicalway - easier to attribute the feelings that had raged through her all those months ago to the heat of the moment, yet now, four months later, she is not so certain. She walks between two buildings, her boots on grass, eyes set on the place that she has visited everyday for the past one hundred and seven days. She carries her laptop under her arm, and if asked, she would say that her intention was to find a quiet place to grade a few tests or to assemble lesson plans, but that is a lie. What she is here to do is far more personal.

A gentle rise leads to the top of the earthen embankment that runs the circumference of the grounds of the Garden, remnants of the crater that the Galbadian missiles blasted during the attack on the Garden. During the renovation of the school, trees had been planted at regular intervals; each of them seeded using Esthar's advanced technology to temporarily accelerate growth. The tree that Quistis has chosen to sit under is less than eighteen months old yet already rises to over twenty feet, branches spreading wide to provide shade in the late summer heat. Quistis sits down under the tree and opens her laptop, powering it up and calling up her wireless link to the Garden network. Her fingers fly over the keyboard, entering codes that her status as Head Instructor entitled her to. Within half a minute she has accessed the contract status files, where current on going SeeD contracts were monitored. The only one she cares about is SeeD's primary concern, the Esthar contract. The Esthar Government has contracted the bulk of SeeD to help deal with the hordes of monsters unleashed on the already hostile plains that surround the hidden city during the Lunar Cry. Dozens of new species of monster had fallen from the stars during that apocalyptic moment, and SeeD was best equipped to deal with this unknown threat. Or at least, Quistis thinks, that's the theory. She takes a deep breath and pulls up the latest casualty figures for that day's operations, dreading what she will read.

She reads the list of wounded first, sparing her the most potential horror, going through lists of names of SeeDs injured in battle with monsters from beyond the sky. Not finding his name there does not bring her comfort. She sighs and turns to the thankfully shorter list of those killed in action, reading each name there letter by letter, as if the name she seeks is hidden somewhere in each letter. The name is not there. She reads the list again, and again, as she has ever since Alpha Platoon, Bravo Company, Sixth SeeD Battalion, mustered out into battle one hundred and seven days ago, desperate to be certain.

His name is not there.

Quistis closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the liquid crystal display of her laptop. "Eric," she whispers, relief flooding her.

Day 10:

It is the resumption of her teaching schedule that begins it for Quistis, although the feelings were already there, buried, she realizes, in the morass of denial that serves her as a defense.

As Head Instructor, it is her job to personally conduct, at least in part, the orientation for all SeeD candidates either new to the Garden system or to Balamb Garden as transfers from Trabia and Galbadia Gardens. What that usually means is that she gives a little welcoming speech to the candidates and let Xu handle the rest. Afterwards, she does the real work, interviewing each candidate in order to understand him or her better. It is during those proceedings that Quistis finds herself thinking about Eric Alfredsson for the first time since he left for Esthar. Sitting behind her desk in the office she only rarely uses, talking to a transfer from Galbadia, it suddenly hits her like a laser beam between the eyes, a memory of her first conversation with Eric:

He's so small, Quistis thought, studying the youth who sat, ramrod straight, in the seat across from her. 

He was actually a little bit taller than she was, but in terms of his build, he was whipcord thin, hardly the sort that one expected to wield any kind of weapons. His hair fell into his face in such a fashion that it gave him an air of being fragile, as if he would break if too much pressure were placed on him. His eyes, she was forced to admit, were beautiful, and she imagined that the girls here would quite heavily pursue him. Assuming he was not already with the raven haired, loud-mouthed girl who went everywhere he did, irritating people at a range of one hundred feet. The Disciplinary Committee, Quistis suspected, was going to have its hands full with Aiko Hayashibara. "Eric Alfredsson," she began, looking at his file on the monitor of her desktop computer. "Weapons classification, edged weapons, specializing in swords. Magic classification is Alpha user, Junction and GF skills very high."

"Yes, ma 'am," Eric said calmly.

Cool customer, she thought. "You were born in Galbadia, in Deling City, and were admitted to Galbadia Garden at the age of twelve. During the Galbadian occupation of your Garden, you were locked up because of your opposition of the takeover. All your records say that you are an exceptional candidate and, had the War not come up, you would already be a SeeD."

"Thank you, Head Instructor."

"I'm not that much of a stickler for details, Eric. I don't care if you call me Instructor Trepe, or even by my name if you're comfortable with it."

Eric thought about it. "I think I'll stick with Instructor Trepe, ma 'am. I'm not terribly comfortable with being informal with my instructors."

Which was true, Quistis knew; Eric had only come out of his formal shell to any extent by the time he had graduated, the night that he had surprised her at the Nest by coming to find her. He had been perfectly formal with her, calm and level-headed, until they had gone to Dollet after Aileen Navarre, which was when everything had gone odd. She remembers the way Eric had dealt with her with a professionalism that bespoke of his discipline, and, strangely, the thing that had most impressed her was the only thing that broke his discipline: how he dealt with Aiko.

Day 119:

Quistis closes the casualty report and accesses her e-mail in-box, not shocked to find seven different ones from Selphie Tilmitt -the girl lives on-line since she and Irvine split up, Quistis knows-and rather surprised to see one listed under "Aiko 0121". Puzzled, Quistis selects that one, and reads it, smiling unwittingly.

To: Quisty

From: Aiko

Re: He's gonna kill me!

Quisty!

Hiya! We just debriefed from the last operation that we're assigned to, so that means tomorrow we move out to Esthar and the Tilmitt (groan) flies us back. He'll kill me for this, but Eric is so excited to be going back-I swear he's never acted like this before. Hope you can handle him…

Later!

Aiko

Quistis deletes the mail, out of a sense of honor toward Aiko. She hadn't thought much of Aiko until the affair in Dollet, where while she was the weakest of the three SeeDs there, she had fought as hard as Eric and Quistis. Now she did not quite consider Aiko to be a friend, but the possibility was there. It is widely held in SeeD that Eric's devotion to Aiko will cost him as a SeeD, yet Quistis does not agree. Eric and Aiko were two parts of a whole, a friendship rare in the world between two teenagers of the opposite sex, and without Aiko, Eric wouldn't be the same. Even if they had hidden secrets about their power from SeeD.

Day 21:

Squall Leonhart has a tendency to make certain that the love of his life, Rinoa Heartilly, wasn't around whenever he had to do something unpleasant. As Combat Master of SeeD, he makes so many unpleasant decisions that Quistis wonders whenever he and Rinoa find time to be together. Then she it occurs to her when it can happen and she locks that thought away. Squall sits behind his desk, a place that Quistis finds does not suit him, and his manner is as stern as ever. "Quistis, what do you propose that we do to Eric and Aiko for what they did?" he asks.

Now that's a loaded question, Quistis thinks. "I assume you refer to their hidden powers. Aiko's teleportation and Eric's energy deathblows." Squall nodded. "And what's the issue?"

"Quistis, they hid their true power from us. Who knows what else they're hiding?"

Quistis has already considered this, and in fact knows that Eric is hiding things from them. During the confusion of the day that they had chased Aileen Navarre around Dollet, Quistis had asked Eric a question about his family. In the course of his answer he had said that his mother was dead. Later, wrapped up in the confusion that Aileen's presence had caused in her, she had unwittingly asked about his mother again. This time he had said his mother was alive. Quistis had not realized what he had said until Eric had already left, but she knew that there was reason to doubt Eric. But still …. "You should have thought of that before you sent them to Esthar, Squall."

"I sent them to Esthar to attempt to quantify their power, Quistis. Seifer and Zell are down there, and can handle them if they can't be trusted."

Quistis glares at Squall. "Damnit, Squall, Eric and Aiko risked their lives to help defeat Aileen, and this is how you repay them?"

"Quistis, I have all of SeeD to consider. They helped you, that's true, yet…"

Quistis stands up. "I can't believe you. The Garden Masters strip-mined my mind and hid it from everyone and all you can care about is playing by their rules!"

Squall seems taken aback by Quistis' vehemence. Privately, Quistis is as well. "Quistis, this isn't easy for me to say…" he offers.

"I'm sure it isn't, Squall." Inside, her thoughts are a maelstrom of confusion. I should agree with him totally, she thinks. Eric's power is dangerous, and he has lied to me, about his mother. Yet part of her rages at what Squall is saying. That rage causes her to lash out. "Well, if it's powers that we don't know the limits of, guess we had better send Rinoa down there next."

Squall jumps to his feet. " I don't think I like what you're saying, Quistis."

"You aren't supposed to. Just don't think you're fooling me, Squall. I can understand how it's easy to be selfish."

Squall thinks about it. "And what are you being selfish over?" he asked, logically enough.

And for that Quistis has no answer.

Day 119:

Quistis is brought from her reverie by the roar of the scramjet engines of the Ragnarok as it soars overhead, the pilot, most likely Selphie, putting the crimson aerospace craft through a roll as it passes over the Garden. She knows that the Ragnarok, refitted as a troop carrier for sixty troops, is delivering the current crop of SeeDs to the Esthar camp and bringing back those who have completed their four month tour of duty to Balamb. Most of those returning will probably go back to Esthar, due to the size of the threat of the monsters. This thought saddens Quistis.

She wishes that she had not said what she did to Squall, to say that his love for Rinoa blinded him to the potential threat the young sorceress could pose. She knows better than that, how much it bothers Squall that Rinoa could become an enemy, and yet she still said it. She worries about the little things as much as she does the major issues, always has, and in many ways, it's the little things that cut deeper with her. Quistis sighs, knowing that sooner or later she will have to face Rinoa, face her with the knowledge that she cast such aspersions on her. She finds that she is at times hard on Rinoa, perhaps because she is a trained soldier and she will always view Rinoa as an amateur. The small part of her that still nags at her over the fact that Rinoa broke through the shell that Squall had built around himself tries to say something about that, but she quiets it. Squall is not a concern now.

Eric is.

Day 76:

It is actually a conversation with someone who isn't there that helps Quistis make some sense of the emotions that are raging within her.

Xu has been with the Esthar contingent since the contract began, which has deprived Quistis of one of her closest friends and one of the few people that she can actually talk to about herself. She realizes now that Xu filled the void that had entered her life when Aileen had been killed, although she did not realize until recently that there had been a void. Xu contacts her infrequently via video messaging, usually when Quistis is working in her office after classes. She is doing just that when the monitor of her computer lights up with a message notice. Quistis takes the message without paying it much heed, and so is a bit surprised when Xu's image pops up on her monitor. "Hey, Quistis," Xu says, "still working hard?"

"Trying to," she admits, removing the glasses that she so rarely wears. She rubs her eyes and says," How's it going?"

"It could be better," Xu admits. "The monsters here are so much stronger than most-it's like that place you guys found, the Island Closest to Heaven. Everything is a Level 100 monster."

"Sounds rough. How's Zell holding up?"

Xu smiles. "Oh, you know Zell. He thinks that every problem can be solved my hitting it really hard. Seifer's lucky-he's got that hot shot Alfredsson kid running point for him." Something must have changed about her expression, because Xu suddenly leans closer to the screen, positively beaming. "Ah-ha, so it's true, isn't it?" she says.

"What's true?" Quistis asks, going on the defensive.

"I had heard that someone had melted your heart, a swordsman of amazing power. Didn't put much credence in it, since you're so duty bound, yet that look you gave me when I said his name…" Xu giggles. "Good for you!"

"Back up, Xu. You're getting a little ahead of yourself. It's true that Eric helped me defeat poor Aileen, but come on, we aren't an item." She tries not to think about the kiss they shared the night before Eric shipped out for Esthar, or the quick little kiss he got in before she could quite stop him. She tries not to think about how she had laid awake that night, her very blood boiling, wishing that he was there with her. "Eric's a friend, and I owe him my life. Nothing more."

Xu considers this. "Quistis, you still can't lie to me. You can do it to other people, even yourself, but I always see through you. Now, tell me what you're really thinking."

Quistis sighs. Xu is a friend-for some reason, as dearly as she cherishes Selphie and Rinoa's friendship, she can't talk to them about this-and she finds she needs a friend at the moment. "Xu," she begins, reluctantly, "it's just that the whole Aileen business took two days! Oh, I was Eric's teacher for months, but I didn't treat him any differently than his classmates. And suddenly he's all I can think about, and he's been gone for months and all I do is think about him. I check the casualty reports every day scared I'm going to see his name there and I can't figure out why." The last came out in a single breath, her heart emptying as fast as she speaks. "I really don't know him, Xu. Why do I care so much?"

Xu considers it, then says, "I would like to welcome you to the human race, Quistis Trepe."

"And just what does that mean?" Quistis asks, a bit stridently.

"It means that you're attracted to Eric Alfredsson. You got close to him and found something you liked and you are scared that he'll die or come back with a girlfriend…am I right?" Quistis nodded. "Thought so. You always magnify and internalize the little things."

"Little things? Xu, I've never felt like this before! How could it be little?"

"Quistis, I can't really explain it, but look-I think your problem might be that you're mistaking desire for love. I see it in your eyes, girl-you are seriously attracted to this guy. But you've twisted it up for some reason and you think it can't be love if you hardly know him. Well, Quistis, love has to start somewhere. Attraction is the foundation of love, the thing that draws one's eye-but it doesn't always mean love. Wanting to jump Eric's bones doesn't mean you have to marry him."

Quistis blushes. "Xu!"

Xu sweeps in for the kill. "So you do want to jump his bones!"

Quistis fancies that she is bright red from head to toe. "Xu, stop it!" Xu is grinning ear to ear at her. "Look, Xu, I already talked to Eric about this. He was the one that admitted there was some kind of attraction, but it was too soon to get into it."

"Oh, so basically, you overreacted again, didn't you, Quistis?"

"Not completely. I-I can't explain it to you. Let me explain it to Eric at least, okay?" Xu agrees, and after a few more moments of inconsequential conversation, she signs off, leaving Quistis alone with her thoughts. What they are she keeps to herself.

Day 119:

Quistis looks around and realizes that the sun is beginning to fall towards the horizon, which means that she has been out here, lost in her thoughts, for quite some time. She closes her laptop and rises, stretching her arms over her head. Tomorrow, she thinks, tomorrow is the day. She walks down the hill and into the campus, her wait nearly over.

Day 120:

Eric Alfredsson's day begins with Selphie Tilmitt greeting him with far too much enthusiasm as he, Aiko Hayashibara, and Kai Hallen board the Ragnarok at Esthar Airstation.

Not that Selphie is not normally enthusiastic; in fact, she is the living embodiment of energetic, a hyper-cute fireball who is always in motion, always "up" if you will. She is waiting for them at the head of the rampway, dressed in her normal mode of a way too short dress and knee high boots, although things have changed in the past four months, Eric sees. Her hair has developed enough blonde streaks that her hair seems to have changed color, and she seems to be letting it grow straighter, getting rid of the little "wings" she once had. Eric finds he approves. "Hi there!" she says, giving all of them a wave. "Hey, Kai, "she cries, immediately disproving Eric's theory for why Selphie is there: confusing both him and Aiko, she gives Kai a hug that practically cracks the youth's spine. "I've seen you on so many screens I never thought I'd really see you!"

Kai seems nearly mortified by the attention as Selphie releases him. "Uh, hi, Selphie. Yeah, I guess I did see you a lot when I was sending all the combat reports to the computers at Balamb-you're always on-line."

"Well, I'm a busy girl, you know." She turns towards Eric. "Hi. You're Eric, right. That Eric." The way she emphasizes "that" reconfirms his theory of why she is here.

" Which Eric is that?" he asks guilelessly as a few more SeeDs straggle into the combat bay of the Ragnarok.

"Oh, you know," Selphie practically sings. "Don't worry, I'll get you back soon enough, killer." She playfully digs an elbow into his ribs, then walks away in her going everywhere at once manner. 

Aiko sighs. "Lord I hate that girl," she says to no one in particular.

Eric is about to say something when he notices that Kai is watching Selphie with an expression of what Kai probably hopes is well-hidden interest. I misread him, Eric thinks. He wasn't mortified by Selphie hugging him-he was scared to death. I think Kai has a crush on somebody. Well, good luck, kid, he thinks. "Come on, guys. Let's get settled in. Still got to fly to Balamb Garden."

Aiko smiles. "Where destiny awaits," she intones gravely, eyes sparkling with mirth.

Eric is sitting on one of the combat bay's benches about an hour later, his sword, Grieving Angel, laying on top of his duffle bag at his feet when Aiko, who has been wandering the Ragnarok, most likely against regulations, sits down beside of him. "Hi, Eric-getting nervous yet?" she asks him.

"What do I have to be nervous about, Aiko?"

Aiko leans closer to him. During her stay at Esthar, she has cut her long hair to a length more manageable for combat, and strands of it fall into her face. "Eric, I've known you since we both were nine, and you absolutely can not lie to me. You're going to Balamb to see Quistis."

"I'm going to Balamb for R&R, not just for Quistis." Eric closes his eyes. "Yes, you know I want to see her again. But I don't have a thing to be nervous about. This is just like a battle-keep your mind on your objective and you'll be fine."

Aiko looks around and makes certain that none of the forty SeeDs returning to Balamb with them are paying attention to their conversation before she says, "Little brother, if you think love is like war, you should be nervous."

Aiko rarely calls him "little brother" these days; the circumstances under which she started calling him that are long gone now. She usually only calls him that now to catch his attention. "And what exactly do you mean, Aiko?"

"I mean that war is about defeating the opponent. Love is about surrendering to a person, war's diametrical opposite." 

Eric considers this. "In what way?"

"Perhaps surrender is the wrong word, Eric. In combat, you cannot accept the situations that the enemy places you in. In love, you have to accept that the person that you love is a different person, one whom you have to accommodate." Aiko leans back. "Or some thing like that."

"Aiko, I don't love Quistis."

"Didn't say you did. But you could love her. You got severely attracted to her in Dollet."

Eric thinks about it, thinks about how every night, as he slept the sleep of an exhausted warrior, the last thing that he saw was Quistis, and how she has assumed an importance wholly at odds with the amount of time that he was involved with her as a comrade. He remembers the rumors that had sprung up when he had been seen with her at the Nest the night of the inauguration party, and how they had seemed to come true in a day. Mostly, he thinks of the kiss that they shared the night before he had left for Esthar, the one Quistis had asked for and that he would have given her anyway. "I could fall in love with her, Aiko. She's so beautiful, not that beauty is everything."

"Speak for yourself, hotshot," Aiko says, batting her eyelashes at him.

Eric presses on. "She-there's this girl inside of her, a little lost and insecure, and she hides it so well. And when I saw it in her, I just felt this urge to protect her." 

"Oh, dear, Eric. If you go in there telling her you want to protect her, you'll come back with your heart in a sling. Girls like Quistis hate to admit their weaknesses."

"And you know this because you're like that?" Most people think of Aiko as being a force of nature, a wild, unstoppable joker and the definition of confidence. Eric knows better. "Look, it's probably a moot point anyway. I'm three years younger than her- "

"Two years and seven months" Aiko corrected. "Kai pulled her file for me once when we first got to Balamb. Her birthday's in October and yours is in May."

"Whatever." Eric lets a touch of exasperation come out in his voice, and Aiko decides that she's pushed him far enough. "And I've been gone for four months. Whatever we felt for a moment probably died weeks ago."

Aiko playfully musses his hair. "Whatever happens, happens, right? Just remember that I'm here if you need me."

"Thanks." And the thing is, for almost ten years, Aiko has been there for him, just as he has been for her. With them, those aren't hollow words. They are silent on the subject of Quistis for the remainder of the journey to Balamb Garden; Eric in fact sleeping for the last hour they are airborne. He has not been a soldier for long, yet he has already learned to sleep whenever he finds the opportunity.

Eric realizes that things are not going to go normally when he spots Rinoa Heartilly, her dog Angelo beside of her, waiting on the edge of Balamb Garden's airfield. She is scanning the crowd of SeeDs as they disembark from the Ragnarok, and Eric is not surprised when her eyes find him. "Oh, damn," Eric says as Rinoa and her pet begin walking over to them. "Well, well," Aiko says, "the princess herself. Didn't think she slummed with us grunts."

Eric shoots Aiko a glare as Rinoa stops in front of him. Angelo eyes Eric warily, as if uncertain of his intentions towards his mistress. Eric lifts a hand and gently pets the dog on his head. "You shouldn't pet a strange dog, you know," Rinoa says.

"He's supposed to be pretty well trained, Miss Heartilly. Thought it was worth the risk." Judging by how Angelo's tail is wagging, it seems that Eric has won the dog over. "What does the Combat Master want with me?"

Rinoa appears genuinely confused for a second. "Squall? Oh, no, he didn't send me. This is my own business."

"You go, lady killer," Aiko whispers in his ear.

Eric sometimes wishes Aiko was not so sarcastic. This is one of those times. " And that would be?" he asks Rinoa.

Rinoa leans closer to him, her hands clasped behind her back. "I bet you're going to go see Quistis, right?"

Aiko stifles a laugh behind her hand. Eric decides that he needed to stay in bed today. "I may be," he replies with some dignity.

Rinoa's smile could have lit a dark room. "Thought so. Anyway, at this time of day, Quistis lately has gone to the same place. Every day for weeks, actually. And it's not her usual one, either."

"Really," Eric says in a tone bordering on boredom.

"Really. She goes to the hill behind the Garden, overlooking the, ah…oh, yeah, the maintenance buildings on the north side of the campus."

"And how do you know this?"

Rinoa takes a step back, seeming a little embarassed. "Uh, well, one day I followed her. Just a bit concerned, that's all."

Eric finds that Rinoa is being terribly endearing. A great many people in SeeD aren't fond of Rinoa, for a variety of reasons, chief among them the fact that she is a sorceress. Some people hate her simply because, as far as Eric can tell, she's a nice person. Eric finds this ridiculous. "Well, thank you, Miss Heartilly. I suppose I can look into it." Aiko snickers at this. Eric turns and hands her his duffle bag. "Could you take this to my quarters, Aiko?"

"Do I have to?" Aiko whines.

"Don't make me make it an order."

Aiko takes the duffle bag. "Well, okay. But only because I like you." She slings Eric's bag over her shoulder and walks off with the sort of attention getting strut that makes men worship her. Or so she says.

"That's Aiko Hayashibara, right?" Rinoa asks. Eric nods. "I'd heard she was a handful, but I didn't believe it." She turns to Eric. " Well, I gotta run-can't spend all my time helping the lovelorn. C'mon, Angelo." She runs across the tarmac of the airfield, escaping before Eric can make any sort of reply. Eric watches her go and wonders, not for the first time, what can possibly happen next.

Eric walks out between the two maintenance buildings and at once feels as if he has just walked out into the field of fire of a sniper.

Quistis is there, sitting beneath one of the trees that were planted by Esthar during the accelerated rebuilding of the Garden complex; his keen eyes discern that she is wearing her teacher's uniform, which he supposes is a good thing. Since he is in uniform, perhaps he can maintain a professional manner, even though his heart is beating so fast that he feels as if he might faint. Of course, he thinks, she looks rather nice in her uniform, so perhaps this is a no-win situation. He realizes that he has stood motionless, beneath Quistis' gaze, for over half a minute, and he sighs. I'm one of the strongest fighters in the world-Seifer himself said so, he thinks. Why am I so scared? That thought sets him to moving up the hill, the weight of Grieving Angel over his shoulder pressing on him like the weight of the world. He reaches the top of the hill and for the first time in one hundred and twenty days, speaks to Quistis. "Hello," he says, somewhat anti-climatically. 

Quistis peers up at him and smiles. "Hello, Eric. How did you find me out here?"

"Ah, well, I'd rather not say. Someone did point me this way, but I'd like to keep their identity a secret."

"Must have been Rinoa. I saw her following me a few weeks back-she tries hard but she's not much of a soldier."

"The world has enough soldiers," Eric says philosophically.

"True." Quistis pats the ground beside of her with a hand. "Are you going to stand all day, Eric?" She hopes that the calm veneer she is projecting will hold, because she is resisting an urge to leap into his arms and cover his face with kisses. Somewhere she fancies she can hear Xu laughing.

Eric undoes the belt that holds the sheath for his sword and lays it down on the ground, then sits beside of Quistis. Her presence, so close to him, threatens to overwhelm him. How? He thinks. How did I get so fond of her when she wasn't there? He opens his mouth to say something casual and cool and is therefore surprised when he says "I missed you."

"Did you now?" she replies, glad that he started it off. She can see that he has been gripped by the same confusion that felled her, that filled her heart and drove her to desperately checking the casualty lists. She finds this pleasing.

"Yes," he says, not looking at her. "When we were in battle, when we fought the monsters, all I thought about was fighting. I was trained to fight by my father before I joined SeeD, so that's nothing new. But when the day was done, when the de-briefings were done and the reports all filed, all I could think about was you. What you were doing, where you were, all of it. Just…thinking about you. And I tried to tell myself that I had no reason to do so, that what we felt at most was a physical attraction, most likely caused by the stress of that day, but I couldn't convince myself of it. You have driven me crazy for four months and I wish I knew why."

Quistis looks at her feet, her toes making nervous patterns in the grass. "Maybe it's because the same thing happened to me. When you left, I said to myself 'All right, Quistis, he's gone, so you can get on with your life and see what happens when he gets back.' Only it wasn't that way, Eric. You kept getting into my head, and I did my best to deny it. I couldn't reconcile the fact that we barely knew each other personally with the fact that I was scared that you would die in Esthar. That's why I started coming up here, because I wanted to read the casualty reports and if you had been hurt or killed, I didn't know how I'd take it." Eric seems stunned. "I have had a lot of time to think about this, Eric. Probably too much. I'm afraid of all the implications of becoming so attracted to you so quickly, and of becoming so fond of you when you were gone."

Eric nearly jumps out of his skin, hearing the same thought he had just had being spoken by Quistis. "I think I understand," he tells her. "And your conclusions?"

"I was afraid to let it become what I think it might become, that I could dare to love you." That was what she could not tell Xu, the thought that had haunted her for all of Eric's absence. It isn't being attracted to him, she thinks ,that bothered me. It is the fact that it could lead to love. "I thought in terms of attraction, in terms of time that we knew each other, of how we met. But what I decided was that I was going to open my heart to you…and I was scared that you wouldn't feel the same way." She raises a hand as if to interrupt a thought. "I'm not saying I love you, Eric. I'm just willing to entertain the possibility. And if you don't want to…."

Eric leans over, his hands going to her face, and he kisses Quistis for an answer. All told he thinks it's a good one. He breaks the kiss and says " I think you're saying you want to get to know me better, right?"

"That's what it boils down to. I guess I do overreact to the little things." She rests her head on his shoulder. "Eric, what was your first impression of me? The first thing you thought?"

"You probably don't want to hear the real first thing I thought," Eric admits.

"Never give a girl a line like that. She'll bother you until you give up and tell her what she wants to hear."

Eric sighs. Me and my big mouth, he thinks. He takes a deep breath and plunges in. "Well, it was when I met you in your office. What I thought was 'So, that's the legendary Quistis Trepe.'"

"I like the sound of that. So what was so bad about that?"

"The rest of my thought. Which was 'man, she's got a killer body."" Quistis laughs. "Well, uh, you do, you know."

"Thank you." She kisses his cheek. "You want to get going? You just got home, you know."

Eric got to his feet, collecting Grieving Angel before offering his hand to Quistis, pulling her up beside of him. He has dreamed of this day, dreamed of summer and coming home to Quistis, that he can't help but wonder if he's still dreaming. As they walk down the hill, Quistis asks him "So, what do you want to do tonight?"

Eric smiles. "I have some ideas but they're probably premature, aren't they?"

"Bad boy." They walk out between the buildings, Quistis still holding his hand. Eric lifts their joined hands and says, half in jest, "You know, when people see this, they're likely to talk." 

Quistis leans over and kisses him. "Let them talk, Eric. Let them." 

And for once Eric finds he does not care what people say.


End file.
